At the official tasting for the BestBrewChallenge 2026, a high-caliber jury sampled the beers submitted to this year’s brewing competition. The focus was on the dark wheat beer style, this year’s challenge for the international BestBrewChallenge.

The dream of the BEST beer and what malt grist has to do with it

The German Malting Barley Association published the first crop report for sping barley 2026. Based on seed sales and early estimates by Germany’s state malting barley associations, the Braugersten-Gemeinschaft (German Malting Barley Association) estimates that this year’s spring barley acreage is roughly 320,000 hectares, of which some 307,000 hectares were planted specifically with malting-quality barley....

A total of 158 brewers, mostly from Europe, registered for this year’s challenge and took on the task of brewing a dark wheat beer. During this intensive week, numerous individual interpretations of the beer style emerged—characterized by different styles, approaches, and ideas. This year, BESTMALZ looked over the shoulders of Uwe Kleinhans and Markus Lanninger...

BESTMALZ is part of a special collaborative project within the international craft beer scene: For the Craft Brewers Conference® (CBC®) 2026 in Philadelphia, the official “Commemorative Beer” was brewed using BEST Heidelberg Malz. Under the motto “Of the Brewers. By the Brewers. For the Brewers.”, a unique beer is created each year for the CBC...

BESTMALZ is AEB Brewings' exclusive distribution partner. Starting now, BESTMALZ is offering an attractive discount on high-quality yeasts from AEB Brewing.